Loadster

Pros

While migrating ScrapingBee out of Heroku we wanted to know how the new infra would react to the load.

Simulating 400 users can be very resource-intensive and it would have been difficult to do it on our own machine.

In Loadster it took me literally less than a minute.

Using Loadster also allowed us to perfectly size our servers and we now know perfectly what are our bottlenecks what we will need to upgrade once we hit a certain usage threshold.

Cons

One killer feature would be to compare multiple testing runs.

Let's say I launch test A.

Then tweak my app and launch test B, I'd love to be able to easily compare A and B regarding what I changed in the app.

Pros

A bloody great tool - the scripts are easy to write, and the reporting / alerting are excellent.
Makes setting up load testing & monitoring straightforward and easily repeatable.

Cons

Overall uptime reporting (e.g. monthly) isnt currently available :(
However, the data is all available via API so you can roll your own.

Pros

This tool was super easy for us to get started with and use for a few items. Originally we used it to test out a emergency issue with our website and then we continued to use it to help us build new environments and when upgrading our website software. It gave us benchmarks to see that we were improving where we needed and helped us find areas that had issues. It also allowed us to feel confident that our site would handle the load of users it gets and more.

Cons

I believe that we struggled only with getting to know more about how to use it and needing to do so very quickly. The learning curve to get going took a bit but given the ability the software has that was to be expected. I think we would have looked for some training tutorials if we had time. Also I think we struggled with how to test a development environment that isn't open to the public and not sure we solved being able to do that without opening somehow to the 'outside' web.

Pros

- Clear and intuitive UI - I did not have to reach out for help or even trawl through docs, everything was self-explanatory- Good level of detail in the report - much needed to make sure the results are properly understood- Option to import from Postman (which is a good but relatively slow tool) - I literally let out a small moan of satisfaction when I saw this was an option- Good trial offering

Cons

What's there to dislike ? Nothing !There is no such thing as perfect, but this hits the spot so well you might as well call it that !

Pros

The user experience is awesome. The billing is simple and straightforward - the Fuel Calculator made it easy to work out the required usage. The actual script setup is easy as pie and so intuitive. You download the chrome extension and it records the script instantly. The screenshots auto generate so you can check it's run properly and it can easily handle entering values into fields, clicking on buttons and navigating around the site. If you've never used a performance testing tool for traffic, this is the one to go for - it didn't take much clicking around to feel familiar with the Dashboard and it's capabilities.

Cons

It's more suited to enterprise in terms of pricing as the minimum top up amount is $119 which is quite high, it would be great if there was a smaller package.

Alternatives Considered

Reasons for Switching to Loadster